You come in and smile at us
and wave and say good morning,
the angled joints of your arms making
this more of a challenge than it is
for spry ten-year-olds like us.
You are very interested to receive
news from us about our week:
was it good or bad and why?
Mine is always good because it’s
the weekend, and though the utter
nonsense is not lost on you, you
brush past it, keen to hear anything
I might have to add, and then
to hear from my friend next to me.
The truth is that we’ve been playing
Pokémon all week and chatting
about it on the phone. You can’t just
sit on the news when you’ve
discovered and captured a Zapdos.
You are happy to be with us and
I see in you an earnest man,
aware of more than our quiet
rural surroundings, even though
I do not yet know what I am seeing.
Your face betrays your care,
and slowly from here we learn to be
people, no longer little.